Fun Club What’s the better opening level: 1-1 or Green Hill Zone?

[neil]

Personally I love Green Hill Zone, it’s beautiful

I never had an NES so 1-1 doesn’t really mean anything to me

Speaking as a big Super Mario fan who doesn’t care about Sonic nowadays

 

[fluttersusagi]

GHZ does a great job at introducing the player to the physics and momentum-based platforming gameplay that would come to define the genesis era games...it's just a shame that the rest of Sonic 1's level design then starts to be completely counterintuitive to that. in a vaccuum i do prefer GHZ as a level, but 1-1 is better for being a much better reflection for the rest of SMB.

 

[TLZ]

I'd like to say both.

Both of them made a great 1st impression on me in their own way.

But let me just say, Sonic was the reason I bought the Mega Drive. Mario wasn't the reason I bought the Famicom. And that's not a knock on Mario of course. It's just the Famicom had other games I was interested in as well, like Double Dragon 2 and Captain Tsubasa.

 

[TLZ]

I give the edge to GHZ largely because it teaches a LOT and even gives the opportunity for more lessons along the way.

A few that stick out that can be applied across the entire Sonic 16-bit foursome...

a) The high road is more desirable, and offers more treats if you can get up there. That said it's hard to get up there, and can be even harder to stay up there. Conversely, low route can be sometimes the easier route, but you can miss out on more rings/power-ups/1ups/etc.

b) Speed is a reward for learning about how Sonic handles momentum. He's a little blue pinball with legs. Having a hard time getting up that incline? Taking advantage of that timely horizontal spring can be key. Or just building up speed from that other incline you just passed by moments ago!

c) That said, Sonic's world is a dangerous one. Trouble lurks around every bend, and foolishly speeding around will often just send him smack into the waiting clutches of some badniks. So, if you want to keep your speed and, even more importantly, your rings? Your best bet is to tuck Sonic into a ball, his most safe state, and roll with it. This is probably the most crucial lesson that people miss, and easily contributes to the whole "I get punished for going fast" thing that some speak about.

For an opener that aims to teach you so much in the 5 minutes or less you ideally spend with it, it's so mechanically rich, and it does it fairly organically, too.

That is a very nice summary .

 

[Undeniablybiased]

For the level design itself definitely Mario. Sonic’s is a vibe for sure. It’s got better music, visuals (obviously), and fun ideas, but for “this is the intro to the game and its mechanics” 1-1 clears easily.

 

[Djehuty]

i didn't say it wasn't memorable

being able to memorize a simple layout via repetition doesn't automatically make it a good level though

it still is good, mind you, but it's not because "i can remember the layout"

we aren't talking about how much fun you are having we are talking which one is a better opening level, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about ghz and 1-1 and some better harder instead.

fun is important but the main purpose of a first level is too teach and 1-1 just does a better job at it, it introduces the genre and set it up for the rest of the game.

green hill zone feels like it came out of an entirely different game because the rest of sonic 1 does not build anything in green hill zone. green hill zone is way more fun imo, but it is worse at teaching the player compared to 1-1.

think about it this way, if you had a friend who never played video games in their life, would you give them 1-1 as their first time gaming ever, or green hill zone.

 

[Razgriz]

1-1 is a masterclass in level design to this date and gets used in game design classes to explain how to organically teach a player how to play the game (the other hallmark game for this is actually The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds), so it feels... odd to compare GHZ to it?

GHZs main strength is that it is extremely good at selling you the Sonic "feel". It's the only stage in Sonic 1 where "press right to win" is in full effect and it creates this super speedy gameplay. It's just not something that if you play the games now you can really appreciate anymore; Sonic 1 was made to be replayed over and over again - it's why later stages kinda feel like they aren't living up to GHZs ease of speed. You really have to earn going fast in Sonic 1 and that means learning the level layout, predicting the often bullshit tricks and mastering Sonics slippery movement mechanics.

It's a game meant for an 8 year old kid to play over and over again on a christmas break until they can be really fast, get all the Master Emeralds and outwit Eggman. That's just... not how we play games nowadays and that makes GHZ worse looking back since it doesn't seem like the other stages live up to it. The current model for games is to finish a game, discard it for a year and then go back to it to re-experience the story all over again with a fresh perspective since game availability is no longer tied into "a kid can only beg their parents for 1 game for christmas and 1 game for their birthday each year". Sonic 1 wasn't meant for the modern kinda player.

 

[batfax]

Maybe it's not how you play games nowadays, but I'm pretty sure I replayed Resident Evil 2 Remake over and over until I got that infinite ammo rocket launcher. I'm also pretty sure "the story" isn't why I would revisit modern Mario levels. Not to mention kids aren't exactly rich nowadays, with the ones in my family without game-playing parents still only getting one or two console games a year. Thanks to mobile, they're still spoiled for choice though.

we aren't talking about how much fun you are having we are talking which one is a better opening level, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about ghz and 1-1 and some better harder instead.

fun is important but the main purpose of a first level is too teach and 1-1 just does a better job at it, it introduces the genre and set it up for the rest of the game.

green hill zone feels like it came out of an entirely different game because the rest of sonic 1 does not build anything in green hill zone. green hill zone is way more fun imo, but it is worse at teaching the player compared to 1-1.

think about it this way, if you had a friend who never played video games in their life, would you give them 1-1 as their first time gaming ever, or green hill zone.

"Fun" is one of the criteria laid out in the initial post, as is music for that matter, so I'm pretty sure we are talking about fun. It also mentions the game's mechanics, not "is it a valuable teaching tool for platformers as a whole genre?" which is a far, far, loftier goal. You're inventing additional criteria that you think are important above what the actual question is. Just 'cause Marble Zone is a rough choice for a second level doesn't negate that you still use skills you pick up in GHZ throughout the game. If I were to go even further, since "only Act 1" isn't even mentioned in this hypothetical and I was just assuming that was part of the criteria to keep things more fair, GHZ teaches players even more! Different varieties of moving platforms, rewards for backtracking, a boss fight! Wow! You'd need to compare the whole first world of Mario to compete with that though, not 1-1. You're not even taught to RUN in 1-1! There have been people who didn't even know you COULD run in SMB!

If I'm teaching someone how to play a game for the first time ever, it's probably going to be with Kirby's Dreamland if I'm picking a platformer, but more likely Portal or Pokémon. If I could only pick between 1-1 and GHZ Act 1 as my teaching tool, truly standalone with nothing else attached, the only thing they're allowed to play is THIS level over and over again until they "get" platformers, I'd probably still go for GHZ since it teaches more complex concepts that could be applied to more games (physics, momentum), has more to do, multiple skill-based routes without any hidden mechanics to find them, and is more forgiving of a first timer's mistakes because of the ring system making it easier to recover after being hit instead of hoping the next block has another mushroom in it instead of a coin. Not to mention the clearly indicated checkpoints if they do have trouble.

If I were to deliver a hot take here, if anything, SMB has taught Nintendo-only kids the wrong way to play Sonic games considering how many "I don't get it" threads/posts I've seen about Sonic on Nintendo-leaning sites, whereas that issue simply doesn't exist when starting with Sonic and going to Mario. Kind of makes me wonder how much they were learning in 1-1 if the next platformer over gave them trouble!

 

[correojon]

1-1 is a masterclass in level design to this date and gets used in game design classes to explain how to organically teach a player how to play the game (the other hallmark game for this is actually The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds)

I had never heard that ALBW was so highly regarded! I'd really love to read more on this, do you have any links?

 

[Razgriz]

I had never heard that ALBW was so highly regarded! I'd really love to read more on this, do you have any links?

Don't have any actual learning resources at hand; but the main reason ALBW is so highly regarded is because its really easy to understand the logic behind the games dungeons with the primary gameplay loop.

Because the game removes one of the usual "big" dungeon collectibles that could heavily change how the player engages with the dungeon (the item) and instead gives it to an external shop (Ravio), it's really easy to explain why and how rewards are placed where they are, how to escalate puzzle complexity and so on; how are rupees and other goodies distributed, what directions do you want to lead the player into for getting the Compass, the Boss Key. And how do you balance all that with the fact that the player is the one in charge and may in fact, leave the dungeon at any point and do another dungeon instead.

ALBW makes all these concepts work in a way that a lot of other games, especially the other 2D Zeldas tend to fumble. It makes great use of these rewards to encourage the player to engage with the game, to experiment and use what they've been given to solve the puzzles the game itself presents. This is pretty much the case for all dungeons, although the first three (Eastern Palace, Tower of Hera and House of Gales) are really good at teaching you the basics for the "larger" dark world and Hyrule castle dungeons in a way that feels organic, without dismissing the quality of the dungeons themselves or dropping constant tutorial popups.

Mark Brown talks about it on the whole (and is somewhat critical on the fact the dungeons on the whole have both flat difficulty and are single item focused but for game design classes that's not a problem), but when you're teaching developers "how do I build rewards that feel fun", ALBW is really good at that.

 

[Stilt Village]

After playing them one after another, Mario is the obvious winner despite the major aesthetic disadvantage. You know what the main factor is? Sonic has much worse enemy design. 1-1 has 17 enemies in it, not a paltry amount. But Green Hill Act 1 has over 30. The branching paths mean you probably won't run into every single one of them unless you're exploring thoroughly, but that's still nearly twice as many for a level that is about the same length. The place is just swarming with the buggers, and they're not mere Goombas either. There's only a couple of the basic Moto Bugs, everything else can fly or home in on you or jump or shoot things or what have you. There's a reason those tiny projectiles are pretty much never a thing in other platformers of this type by the way, the readability of such small bullets in a busy environment is really poor, they're hard for a character that's so much larger than them to avoid, and Sonic is especially lacking in precision among platform characters. Again, there's a reason Mario and Donkey Kong prefer bullets and cannonballs that are nearly as big as your character just like the enemies are. The rush to eliminate each enemy that comes on screen before it can fire feels more like it's out of a shmup than a platformer. This is all a combination of Sonic 1 having really overtuned enemies even in comparison to other Sonic games, and Sonic in general not being great about this.

Sonic hasn't got no idea what it's doing, but enemies aside the level is definitely still a bit messier. There are a bunch of spikes that don't quite seem to have a clear purpose for being there, and it has trouble being an introduction to all the main mechanics because even though they're all there, you're not going to encounter all of them without actively trying to. You will only find a shield if you go over the loop, for one. A first time player is probably going to get the best possible learning experience of having to go through the loop and then being shot out of the tunnel into the air off the ramp, but being introduced to the power-ups at all is uncertain. And you don't ever get to cut loose here, actually? The scripted jump at the end aside, there's maybe one hill you can roll down. That's really more of a thing in the later acts, though they also have way more crumbling ledges and moving platforms over spike pits than I remembered (I think a lot of people were considering every level of Green Hill Zone against 1-1, but that's a lopsided comparison I don't feel like bothering with, and it's not even necessarily in Sonic's favor because the later parts are arguably worse and man is three levels in a row of the same thing too much).

I think Jungle Hijinxs is a better comparison to 1-1 than Green Hill Act 1. It has a similar multi-level structure and is definitely looser than Mario, but still leans more organized than Sonic. And I feel like they have more similar objectives. The use of Rambi for a power trip echoes the Super Star towards the end of 1-1. It's very hard to read intentionality into Sonic level design, because traditional platformer stages are like "this happens, then this happens, then this happens", and that almost never applies to Sonic because of how open it is. There is pretty much never any linear development of mechanics in Sonic, Sonic level gimmicks at their best are more like toys to play with in different scenarios throughout the level, Sonic is rarely interested in (and is in fact better without) obstacle courses meant to challenge you in increasingly difficult permutations. I would go so far as to say that the quality of classic Sonic levels is almost without exception inversely proportional to their difficulty (though some are also dragged down by pure tedium like Sandopolis Act 2 or Sky Chase).

 

[stodesign12]

1 - 1 is better in my opinion, probably one of the best "tutorial levels" ever if we are strictly speaking about game design. Green Hill Zone, on the other hand, serves its purpose of showing that Sonic is a platformer that focuses on speed, but...

Spoiler: SONIC FANS, DO NOT READ!!!

...GHZ also shows why the concept behind Sonic games never worked very well (please don't hate me lol). SEGA needed something to compete in the 2D platformer genre, and to differentiate themselves from the competition they decided that going super fast is cool, but you hardly ever can enjoy that speed. Too many collisions and obstacles, vertical jumps, having to stop to explore hidden places, etc.

None of those platformer elements work very well with the "racing" component of Sonic. And, if 2D Sonic games, while fun, were already flawed, 3D games never got a chance and it was nearly impossible to make them work for that very reason.

 

[Starphanluke]

The way 1-1 teaches you the game without an explicit “tutorial” is incredible. I’m shocked anyone even thinks the two are comparable.

 

[oldpuck]

I think something people are forgetting is that Mario had to introduce a whole genre.

Super Mario Bros wasn't even the first side-scrolling platformer on the NES (that would be Lode Runner). The Atari 2600's best selling original game was Pitfall!, a screen-at-a-time platformer. The platformer, and the side scroller, were both well established and regularly available in arcades.

 

[em]

Super Mario Bros wasn't even the first side-scrolling platformer on the NES (that would be Lode Runner). The Atari 2600's best selling original game was Pitfall!, a screen-at-a-time platformer. The platformer, and the side scroller, were both well established and regularly available in arcades.

You're technically correct, but I think this misses the spirit of the post. Lode Runner had platforms connected by ladders and no jumping, along with a screen that barely scrolled, and played more like Dig-Dug (a maze/puzzler). Pitfall had totally separate connected screens (that didn't scroll) but the entirety of the game was jumping over snakes, scorpions, and logs, swinging on vines, crossing alligator heads, and climbing up/down ladders, all of which happened entirely independently and with no momentum or fine-grained jump control. Arguably both Lode Runner and Pitfall were simpler platformers than Nintendo's own Donkey Kong (which predated each of them), even if Lode Runner technically had scrolling and Pitfall technically had a larger single level.

Super Mario Bros. was a very different sort of game, and far closer to the genre as we know it than to Pitfall or Lode Runner.

 

[oldpuck]

You're technically correct, but I think this misses the spirit of the post.

I would suggest you're missing the spirit of my post I was there, my first console was a 2600, I played Super Mario Bros. that first year of the NES in the US. I played Mario Bros before the Super. That Mario moved and jumped was not a new concept, "jumping games" were an established genre.

Super Mario Bros. was a landmark game in hundreds of ways, and 1-1 is a masterpiece of level design, but this idea that SMB created a brand new genre and 1-1 had to explain fundamental platforming concepts to players is revisionist history and I will die on that hill.

1-1's ability to teach gameplay concepts, in fact, depends fundamentally on players understanding genre's conventions! Gamers fawn (correctly) over the brilliant opening design where you almost have to kill the goomba and get the powerup. I distinctly remember running from the mushroom, getting stuck on the left edge of the screen and being surprised when I didn't die. It works beautifully. And it only works because I knew Mario was a jumping game.

If you don't get that Mario's goal is on the right, and that Mario runs and jumps, that little tutorial section doesn't work. As I clearly remember my distant cousin, Jessica, dying over and over again to that first Goomba, because she didn't get jumping was a core concept.

(me, I struggled with the number of buttons, and my giant thumbs, even on my 6 year old hands, made hitting just one button or the other very hard).

Super Mario Bros. was a very different sort of game, and far closer to the genre as we know it than to Pitfall or Lode Runner.

Yes, the genre was redefined by Super Mario, and in retrospect, the genre coalesced around it. But that's looking at games that came after, backwards. It's not considering what 1-1 did in the context of what gamers already knew.

What made SMB revolutionary as a game isn't even in 1-1, but that's a deep tangent. In the context of 1-1's level design, you needed to learn how Mario moved, and the innovation there was subpixel acceleration. But pick up any video game and learning how to move your character is first on the list. The second big innovation was that Mario could use his jump as a weapon, killing enemies, not just for dodging, which was really new. I was dodging that Goomba like crazy, accidentally hit it and was very surprised.

Obviously, Sonic, coming years later after "Jumping games" became "mario clones" became "side-scrolling platformers", had huge advantages in the mental model that experienced gamers had. It also had huge disadvantages - one of Sonic's great challenges in the market is that it wasn't cloning Mario. There were games that copied Mario's momentum and physics well, and games that cloned it poorly. Sonic was doing something different, intentionally, and Green Hill is designed (well!) to teach that to you.

 

[tender]

Honestly shocked Green Hill Zone has even 1 vote.

 

[Beanstar40]

I’m usually a Mario over Sonic guy, but in this case I’ll give the nod to green hill. The music is better (you heard me), it’s more vibrant and interestingly built due to the more powerful hardware, and it told you right away that this was different than Mario. I’ll give Mario credit for being the og of course, and I think most Mario games are better than most Sonic games, but green hill is just too good. There is a reason sega has been reusing that level theme for the past 13 years

 

[correojon]

I would suggest you're missing the spirit of my post I was there, my first console was a 2600, I played Super Mario Bros. that first year of the NES in the US. I played Mario Bros before the Super. That Mario moved and jumped was not a new concept, "jumping games" were an established genre.

Super Mario Bros. was a landmark game in hundreds of ways, and 1-1 is a masterpiece of level design, but this idea that SMB created a brand new genre and 1-1 had to explain fundamental platforming concepts to players is revisionist history and I will die on that hill.

I was there as well, and I feel that saying that SMB is not the genesis of the side scrolling platformer genre is like saying that SF2 isn't for the fighting genre as, well, there was Karate Champ. Pitfall is not a scrolling platformer and Lode Runner is not something many people played (as of today sales are around 300k), so I don't think you can credit it for teaching the core platforming concepts to the global audience. SMB was the game that reached everywhere and which became the first platforming experience for most people: It's the game responsible for teaching the global audience about the basic side-scroller platforming concepts.

1-1's ability to teach gameplay concepts, in fact, depends fundamentally on players understanding genre's conventions! Gamers fawn (correctly) over the brilliant opening design where you almost have to kill the goomba and get the powerup. I distinctly remember running from the mushroom, getting stuck on the left edge of the screen and being surprised when I didn't die. It works beautifully. And it only works because I knew Mario was a jumping game.

I strongly disagree with this: The NES and the arcade cabinets only had 2 buttons (well, 4 if you count start & select but those wouldn't be used for gameplay until much later), so it's only a matter of time before players would press A and see Mario jump. I guess it's possible some people around the time would've already known about the jumping mechanic, and I'm also sure that the major culprit for that would be Donkey Kong with it's 20M sales and global phenomenon status. And it featured the same protagonist, so it was easy for people to imagine that Mario could also jump in this one. DK predates Pit Fall and Lode Runner as well, so any merit given to them as being the first at anything may have to be given to DK instead.

Still, the game's designed in such a way that, even if takes you 20 attempts to press A and discover that Mario can jump, you won't be losing any progress at all. You're right at the very first screen of the game, so this makes the situation less frustrating and entices players to keep trying. This is also an aspect of the game design, maybe it blurs the line between the level and the game's designs, but that's precisely what makes it so great.

If you don't get that Mario's goal is on the right, and that Mario runs and jumps, that little tutorial section doesn't work. As I clearly remember my distant cousin, Jessica, dying over and over again to that first Goomba, because she didn't get jumping was a core concept.

But that's why this level is so great: Because everyone understood those things. And it's no coincidence, it's a consequence of the level design. People understood that you had to go to the right because of the sprite of Mario looking to the right, because of the negative space to his right caused by Mario starting not at the center of the screen but to the left, because Mario himself was designed with a big nose and a moustache for contrast to make it even more apparent to enforce this directionality, because if you tried to go to the left the screen just wouldn't budge...All of these are conscious design decisions that had the same goal and they worked! Here we are, 20 years later and a lot of the design principles in that very first screen are still used and studied. I think we're beyond doubting that it was a VERY good design.